::Rescheduling Sounds Go Here::
I’m supposed to have my PICC Line out today, but I’m not. Master Pravus was getting ready to access me and he didn’t like how it was looking. “Kitty, we gotta hold them off again.”
“What? Noo. But. I need my arm back!”
And he had a lot of good reasons: port red. Port rashy. (From a combo of the steri-strips and the medical glue crap.) And if you put skin prep on a rash it’ll blow up under the dressing and take forever to heal. The rash, not the dressing. I had a horrendous rash under my port dressing once, and it took weeks to go away. During that time I had to use gauze instead of a sterile dressing so I know he’s worried about that happening again.
“But we could just use gauze like before.” I tried.
“We didn’t have the option to use the PICC line before because you didn’t have one. I think we should reschedule and leave it alone. It’ll heal way faster than if we put a rash under the dressing.”
He’s right. But I was so frustrated. I’ve had one arm (and it’s my ill-favoured) for two months now. I was in such a bad mood afterwards. Internally, I mean, just. So frustrated about waiting. I told my Dragon that I had to wait again. I’ve literally lost count of how many times now that we’ve rescheduled this. Is this the third or fourth?” I don’t know. It probably doesn’t matter, but I’m getting extremely restless. I can’t even focus on books or reading lately. I need two arms to do anything worth really doing, and so I feel just sort of.. Left out of stuff. It’s getting to me.
My Dragon said something so simple, and it completely defused the tension I had over the whole thing. They said “Well, it is a bigger port, it’s going to take longer to heal,” or something similar. And I just. They’re right. But I hadn’t been thinking about that. I mean, logically I know the thing doesn’t need to be perfect to access it. But it’s taking a long time to get to a point where it can be safe under a transparent dressing. But my heart softened. They’re right. Bigger port, bigger healing time.
And that’s that on Kitty being panicked about something probably beyond her control, when realistically the truth is: bigger = more resting. It is what it is. Gotta wait a little more. And I can’t do anything for right now about that.
Speaking of bigger port. (And yes, it’s a little wider than a 1/4″ bigger than the old port. Frickin’ A!) Once we took the steri-strips off my port we realized that, indeed my port is not the same one I am used to.
“Oh my gawd, it’s huge.”
“It is bigger, Kitty.”
I mean, it’s easier to not feel like it’s huge if it’s not attached to your body. If you’re just looking at it. “No, it’s. That’s pretty big.” They’d been dicking me around for months about how they didn’t even want to give me a port and trying to hard sell me on something that was absolutely the wrong device. So when I realized that this port is much bigger than my old port (I could tell easily by feel alone) I decided that I was going to get out that booklet they send home with you. Nobody told me that they weren’t giving me the exact same port I had before. So I wanted to know if I was right, or maybe the new ones were bigger. Or. Or what?
It’s a different type of port, a “special” kind made without metal. And it has a higher infection rate, high risk of parts breaking off. I’m upset about this. I wouldn’t have approved of them putting it in me, and I feel they should have told me before doing it. I’m trying to figure out why I was given this (in my words) “trash dump” of a port, but I haven’t gotten through to anyone yet because I forgot it’s a holiday weekend. If they don’t have an extremely good reason, then I’m considering switching hospitals for my hernia surgery.
The thing is. I need to get the hernia surgery done. It’s getting substantially bad. But at the same time, I have had two surgeries go just wrong here. Where things were implanted in me that I never would have approved of. And this would have been easily solved if they just told me before I had the anesthesia. On top of that. I’m a little apprehensive because this hernia has already had several repairs. I don’t want “just anyone” to do it. I want to make sure it’s not going to be done somewhere that they’re going to fuck around. I realize that problems can happen that aren’t always anybody’s fault. I get that. But. I am also having an extremely difficult time trusting anyone with a scalpel near me if I’m not sure. I want to be sure.
So right now I’m waiting again. I still have an appointment in March to fix my hernia. I still plan to go to that. The big problem is: I need the story on what’s going on with this port. It’s not a quality device and at best it’s going to need to be changed out sooner (but I don’t know how much sooner) and at worse, it could fall apart or crumble off inside me. I want to know why I was given this instead of the normal titanium one.
I don’t know what my current plans are right now. I’m going to make a couple of calls in the morning and I’m going to see what my next steps are. But right now, I’m not in a great place because I’m not sure what I should do. I need more info: but I also don’t really want to switch hospitals. Not really. That would be so much work, and I’m not sure yet if the ends would justify it. I’ll update when I have any idea what’s happening. But here’s where I am for now.